Modern computer networks exhibit the need for ever increasing amounts of storage for data and applications consumed and used in such networks. As the number of storage devices used by an enterprise increases, the complexity associated with managing those devices likewise increases. Thus, it is usually the case that the storage devices (which may be configured in an array of heterogeneous or homogeneous storage devices) are managed via a dedicated management console.
Using such management consoles, administrators are able to create volumes on the storage devices, which volumes are, in turn, accessed by applications running on application servers. Examples of applications include file servers, e-mail servers, database managers, and virtual machines. The data associated with these applications (“application data”) needs to be protected to enable recovery in case of accidental erasure, natural or other disasters, or to meet regulatory or other compliance requirements. Hence, it is common for administrators to take snapshots of the application data (i.e., make point-in-time copies thereof) and either store these snapshots in place on the storage array or move the snapshots to a secondary storage system that might have a different storage medium. To enable quick and reliable recovery, it is generally the case that the applications are placed in a quiescent state prior to the snapshot being taken, hence, the snapshots are known as application consistent snapshots.
In current practice, the management of application consistent snapshots is done either directly on the application server or on a separate backup server. For example, storage array vendors currently provide application-specific managers that are installed on individual application servers. These solutions allow administrators to schedule application consistent snapshots and initiate further data protection activities, but result in significant administrative burden because of the proliferation of application managers necessitated by their application-specific nature. In addition, with such solutions provisioning of the storage is kept separate from the data protection practices. Likewise, in the case of backup servers, the division between provisioning storage and protecting it is maintained. The former must be done on the storage array, while the latter is done on the backup server once the backup copies of the application data have been made. Consequently, these existing solutions for storage management and data protection have created multiple management points and separate sets of activities for provisioning and protecting storage in an application consistent manner.